Tag Archives: Business and Economy

THE FUTURE OF TAXATION.

02 Tuesday Dec 2014

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ Comments Off on THE FUTURE OF TAXATION.

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Tax Due Warning - A single, angled spotlight reveals a...

A common thief does not typically act with greater force or stealth.

I would guess like me you have tried to get your head around the taxes you pay without much success.

With the rising inequality concerns maybe it time you did as taxation has a future that will affect you and your love ones.

But where, and in what guise? Let’s have a look.

Slow population growth is depressing income growth, which leads to higher taxes.

Virtually every government could pay off its debts by taxing wealth.

Luckily for the rich such taxes are often politically unacceptable.

In other words, fiscal problems are best regarded as problems of dysfunctional governance by governments that are selling off state assets into Privatization until there will not be enough national wealth to pay off any debts.

Anyway for the purpose of this post it is essential that we try to appreciate the difference between real taxes and current (or nominal) taxes.

The real tax over any significant period is the level of government spending in relation to national output. The higher public spending as a percentage of GDP, the higher the real tax. That amount must in time be transferred from private to public hands—be it now or later.

The current tax, for its part, is the amount actually paid to a government in any given period, and is almost never equal to the real tax.

Got it. No. Shame on you. Try again.

A current tax lower than the real tax (that is, a public deficit) implies higher current taxes in the future, while a current tax higher than the real
tax (a public surplus—a phenomenon observable in only three of the past 50 years) implies lower current taxes in the future.

Now. You have.

So the stated political orientation of the administration presiding over a gap between current and real taxation—be it social democratic or of the supply side right—does not matter.

Because deferred taxes are simply claims against the public.

There are two ways to meet these claims:

1) higher current taxes in some future period or 2) inflating the claims away.

Inflation, which generally induces a shift of wealth from private to public hands, is the functional equivalent of a tax increase. These relations do not follow from any policy or ideology, but are purely matters of arithmetic.

Any clearer.? It’s of no matter.

Because what appears on the surface to be public debate over the appropriate level of taxation—and this goes on all the time—is in fact political maneuver by interested constituencies to get out of the line of fire of inevitable tax increases while deflecting the higher taxes onto someone else.

Now you have.

Different taxes do have different allocative effects.

Future taxes will perpetuate or even compound the misallocative effects of the present tax system.

Taxes in the next ten years, even though considerably higher than today’s, will nonetheless be insufficient, in all likelihood, to fill the revenue gap that opened wide during the last ten.

Inflation is all that remains to look forward to.

For a governments it will be like letting go to the pull of gravity.

Most wealth has already been subjected to income and other taxes, perhaps multiple times. It doesn’t seem fair to the holders of that wealth to suddenly pay additional taxes on assets that they thought were in the clear, and such taxes would signal that previous policy has failed.

It seems to me that on both ends of the political spectrum there is remarkably little concern with the allocative effects of taxation in its various forms.

However it matters how you tax if we are to halt the growing inequality in our life styles as over the next 10 to 15 years current taxes will increase mightily. Why?  Because our own consumption, fueled by debt, outstripped our incomes in recent years, while foreign savers, predominantly from Asia/China/and the Far East financed the bulk of new investment in our economies.

Why aren’t foreign savers put off by double tax on capital income?

The answer is that they would be, if they paid it. But they don’t.

Another reason it that the massive fiscal stimulus that have been pumped into our economies by Quantitative easing and the selling off of state Assets (To Sovereign Wealth Funds, see previous posts) will in their wake pull up current taxes or spread inflation, another form of higher taxation —whether consumers or savers, suppliers of capital or suppliers of labor, or both in a maelstrom of inflation.

When income from labor is saved rather than consumed, the income from that saving (now capital income, in economic terms) is taxed again.

This “second” tax on saving makes the tax cost of capital income greater than that of labor income spent on immediate consumption. The two separate layers of income tax imposed on corporate earnings and then again on dividends distributed to shareholders actually imply a third tax on corporate profits. This goes far toward explaining why we don’t save.

What can be done:

What is needed is a shift in the burden of taxation away from capital income and onto consumption.  In short, some form of consumption tax should be the predominant national tax.

The problem with a value-added tax is that people can to a considerable extent earn their incomes in one tax environment and spend them (either at retail on vacation or wholesale in retirement) in a different (and VAT-free) environment, so that ultimately both their incomes and their consumption are untaxed.

Value-added taxes and payroll taxes are analogous to an income tax that is imposed territorialy, whereas a tax on consumed income is imposed on worldwide income, minus the component of saving, and is therefore a tax on the worldwide consumption of a taxpayer.

(Turnover-type taxes such as sales taxes and value-added taxes are widely and correctly understood as consumption taxes. So is any tax that does not reach capital income.)

A tax on consumed income is an income tax in which personal saving is deducible from taxable income, thus excluding capital income and leaving only the amount of income that is consumed subject to current taxation.

In stead of contemplating such a tax in many EU Member States we got political, academic and public debate on wealth taxation which always gains traction in times of strained public finances.

The question is who ultimately bears the burden of wealth taxation (tax incidence)

The existence of a blurry frontier between capital and labor, income for the high-income earners, the role of transparency and automatic exchange of information in facilitating tax compliance and the serious political economy constraints makes any form of wealth tax unworkable.

Just imagine the difficulty to evaluate one’s wealth and the administrative costs along with the risks of tax evasion and capital flight.

Many people have become distressed about their taxes because they have been led to believe that the property they acquired would not he taxed to the extent that it has been. Accordingly, they have paid prices for the property that have reflected those expectations. They may be the reasons they are “mad as hell” simply because they feel that they have been misled by their government and that they not only have had to give up taxes but also have had to give up wealth in terms of reduced market prices for their property.

Economics have performed the heroic task of measuring wealth for eight leading economies: the United States, Canada, Britain, France, Italy, Germany, Japan and Australia.

Their estimates reveal some striking trends. For instance, wealth accumulation in these eight countries has risen relative to yearly production.

Wealth-to-income ratios in these nations climbed from a range of 200 to 300 percent in 1970 to a range of 400 to 600 percent in 2010. Behind the changing ratios is some bad news, namely that slow productivity growth and but also some good news — that relative peace and capital gains have preserved wealth up to now.

Virtual economies pose a real-world tax compliance risk, even if citizens aren’t purposefully shielding their money.

No one has a clue on how to manage the Planet. The only way forward is a consumption tax regime.

 

Go back

Your message has been sent

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sovereign Wealth Funds. Alarm.

30 Sunday Nov 2014

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ Comments Off on Sovereign Wealth Funds. Alarm.

Tags

, , , , , , , , , ,

<img alt=”” src=”http://media-cdn.tripadvisor.com/media/photo-s/04/79/29/e0/1728.jpg”/>
This photo of 1728 is courtesy of TripAdvisor

Its back to my hobby-horse the ongoing Privatization of the World.

It is of course is happening in a clever way, with very careful paperwork, so we have the option of pretending that it’s not actually happening, right up until the bitter end.

I often wonder is it just me. You barley hear a mummer about it from any other quarter. Other than Ireland where the population has woken up to the Privatization of water.

Perhaps it’s that no one gives a tosser.

That our Governments are systematically divesting themselves of bits and pieces of their own sovereignty, by transfer of assets and service functions from public to private hands.

It’s taking place all over the world without really anyone noticing it happening — often not even the people are asked to vote formerly on the issue.

It is my contention that it is the quality of the state rather than the fact that assets are owned by the state that matters more. In developing countries with extensive market and information failures the state should play an important role in promoting equitable development over the long run not sell of their assets to the highest buyers.

At the political level privatization has been challenged by workers affected by attendant retrenchments and the restructuring of internal and external labor markets consequent upon privatization that has resulted in increased worker vulnerability, and by consumers who have often been negatively affected by increased prices based on cost recovery pricing regimes instituted as a consequence of privatization, or by reduction in service provision arising from “efficiency enhancing” measures as a consequence of privatization.

No one knows precisely how much money is held by SWFs but it is estimated that they currently own $3.5 trillion in assets, and within one decade they could balloon to $10–15 trillion. (equivalent to America’s gross domestic product, an amount larger than the current global stock of foreign reserves of the USA which is about $5 trillion.)

Imagine the biggest and most aggressive hedge fund on Wall Street, then imagine that same fund is fifty or sixty times bigger and outside the reach of any other major regulatory authority, and you’ve got a pretty good idea of what an SWF is.

The rise of sovereign wealth funds (SWF) as new power brokers in the world economy can no longer be looked at as a singular phenomenon but rather as part of what can be defined a new economic world order.

This new order has been enabled by several mega trends which operate in a self-reinforcing manner, among them the meteoric rise of developing Asia, accelerated globalization, the rapid flow of information and the sharp increase in the price of oil by a delta of over $100 per barrel in just six years which is enabling Russia and OPEC members to accumulate unprecedented wealth and elevate themselves to the position of supreme economic powers.

It will not be long before transactions involving investment by sovereign wealth funds, as with other types of foreign investment, may raise legitimate national security concerns.

Concerns are growing that the purpose of the investments might be to secure control of strategically important industries for political rather than financial gain.

They on the other hand see themselves as passive, long-term investors, driven solely by the need to make a good return on their country’s surplus cash.

There is a degree of looking through the wrong end of the telescope to all this.

Sovereign wealth funds have with total assets estimated at $5.4tn as of October 2013. The funds have gained more than $750bn in additional assets since 2012 of which only $60 billion has gone to recent bank bailouts.

They are rapidly becoming owners of big chunks of American,the UK and Europe infrastructures.

Unlike the central banks of most Western countries, whose main function is to accumulate reserves in an attempt to stabilize the domestic currency, most SWFs have a mission to invest aggressively and generate huge long-term returns.

The origin of these SWFs is not even relevant, necessarily.

What is relevant is that these funds are foreign.

They are state-owned investment pools that thanks to a remarkable series of events in the middle part of the last decade they are buying up your governments services such as water treatment, parking meters, toll highways, rail links, ports, public infrastructure projects, commercial real estate all delivering a lot of cash into the coffers of sovereign wealth funds like the Qatar Investment Authority, the Libyan Investment Authority, Saudi Arabia’s SAMA Foreign Holdings, and the UAE’s Abu Dhabi Investment Authority.

Some recent activity:

(The first was the announcement that the Qatari royal family is planning a large investment in the controversial £50billion HS2 rail link, focused on a major new station and housing scheme in central Birmingham.

Qatar Investment Authority, one of the world’s largest sovereign wealth funds, is soon to table a new bid to take over Songbird Estates which owns the iconic Canary Wharf tower in east London, one of the best-known modern symbols of British capitalism.  

Libya’s sovereign wealth fund is suing French bank Societe Generale in a British court for $1.5 billion for allegedly channeling bribes to allies of the son of slain dictator Muammar Qaddafi.  

Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Saturday the country’s sovereign wealth fund could reach $55 billion by March next year if oil prices kept high.

Iran earned $100 billion in oil revenue in 2011. Iran is both the world leader in Shariah Compliant Finance and the world’s most active state sponsor of Jihadist terrorism.

Deutsche Bahn Seeks Sovereign Funds for the state-owned railway, is seeking to sell shares to sovereign wealth funds in the Middle East and Asia during the initial public offering. )

What is more to the point, is we’re being colonized/Privatized.

Industry today may not be regarded as such an industry tomorrow, and vice versa.  Just look at the explosion of energy prices — thanks to a bubble that Western banks and perhaps some foreign SWFs had a big hand in creating.

Out side any regulation these funds are free to plunder the earth in the form of Hedge Funds( (which they have a bunch) with out anyone knowing who the funds investors are.

The point here is if these funds.

Are not regulated by the relevant international bodies determining which kinds of information about their balance sheets, management structures, investment objectives, portfolio breakdowns, and so forth should be supplied by sovereign wealth funds. The European Union could then put curbs on funds failing to comply with the standards for the publication of such information.

One way or the other they should be Capped ( See previous posts)

Go back

Your message has been sent

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

”

 

 

 

 

 

 

Quantitative Easing – enough money to stretch from earth to the moon.

31 Friday Oct 2014

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ Comments Off on Quantitative Easing – enough money to stretch from earth to the moon.

Tags

, , , ,

Popular media’s definition of quantitative easing focuses on the concept of central banks increasing the size of their balance sheets to increase the amount of credit available to borrowers.

Theoretically, this leads to increased spending results in increased consumption, which increases the demand for goods and services, fosters job creation and, ultimately, creates economic vitality. (a simple explanation)

The idea is that by making it easier to obtain loans, interest rates will drop and consumers and businesses will borrow and spend.

So why are we most of us still struggling to make a living?

What in fact is happening is that a flood of cash has encouraged reckless financial behavior and directed a fire-hose of money to emerging economies that cannot manage the cash.

As I understand it the sole purpose of money is as a stable measure of value that facilitates the exchange of goods and investment. Quantitative easing, by its very name, involves the corruption of money’s sole purpose as a stable medium of exchange.

If only life were so simple.

By destabilizing the value of money, Quantitative easing works against the very investment that would drive economic growth. It’s supporting the very government spending and housing consumption that got us into trouble to begin with. It is the horribly obtuse notion that central banks can produce real economic growth through their monetary machinations.

It is financing the ongoing economic hardship through its expanded borrowing of bank reserves. invest in emerging markets, commodity-based economies, commodities themselves, and non-local opportunities rather than to lend to local businesses that are having difficulty getting loans.

Quantitative easing policies have benefited mainly the wealthy. For example 40% of those gains went to the richest 5% of British households.

Quantitative easing cash ends up overwhelmingly in profits, thereby exacerbating income inequality. The consequent social tensions that arise from it, is fundamentally a regressive redistribution program that has been boosting wealth for those already engaged in the financial sector or those who already own homes, but passing little along to the rest of the economy.

It is a primary driver of income inequality.

It might well have been better saved if insolvent firms, institutions like Banks had been allowed to restructure through bankruptcy, and our central banks had provided credit only to sound banks on a short-term basis.

What we have now is central banks selling the assets they have accumulated and it wont be long before interest rates start to climb, choking off what they call the recovery.

Technically, a central bank could become insolvent ( although its liabilities are essentially costless) in a manner similar to a commercial bank. In practice, the situation is very different because a central bank’s assets and liabilities are different from those of a commercial bank, and because the central bank can issue money to meet its obligations. In effect, they can bail themselves out by printing money.

I am no financial ingenious guru but the evidence of Quantitative easing seems to me to be a devaluation of buying power of your money. A good first step in avoiding such a lack of confidence would be to start unwinding the QE policies.

When we look back it might have been better to have put a million in the bank account of ever citizen, which they could have drawn down over twenty to twenty-five years provided they cleared their mortgage, took out health and old age insurance. This would have stimulate the economy for all.

As I said I’m no financial adviser and I’m certainly not “rich, my advice to anyone reading this post  ”Rather than settling for a wage (and be “owned” by bosses), you should be come owners.

Have a look at the below. All comments welcome.

http://youtu.be/JYTyluv4Gws

Go back

Your message has been sent

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Because the Fed’s—it does not pay interest on Federal Reserve Notes and typically pays no interest on reserves—it almost always remits money to the Treasury.

Since 2008, however, the Fed has sold off virtually all of its short-term Treasury securities and acquired instead longer-term Treasuries and the debt and MBS issued by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

These securities are riskier relative to those normally held by the Fed for two reasons.whether a central bank can become insolvent, therefore, centers on what it can do to cause the public to lose confidence in its currency. A good first step in avoiding such a lack of confidence would be to start unwinding the QE policies.

 

 

Even the invention of quantitative easing is shrouded in it did raise economic activity a bit. controversy. that central banks have the capacity to keep inflation in check if the money they have created begins circulating more rapidly.

Are we now just beginning to reap the dark side of the Industrial Revolution

17 Friday Oct 2014

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ Comments Off on Are we now just beginning to reap the dark side of the Industrial Revolution

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , ,

 

The Historiography of the first World War bear witness to destruction and death made possible by the Industrial revolution.

The present day turmoil that we see in the world has its roots created by man during this period.

So has the Industrial Revolution improved life or not? Is the world a better place? A safer place? Do most people have more material wealth than they did two centuries ago? Are we healthier? Are we happier? Is the world more socially and economically just? Is the world headed in the right direction?

It’s not possible to answer all these questions without an in-depth examination of the Industrial Revolution and its effects. There is no definitive answer, other than in short, we cannot hope to understand the modern world without understanding the Industrial Revolution as it resulted in the most profound, far-reaching changes in the history of humanity.

Perhaps it is adequate to say that its influence continues to sweep through our lives today. Just look at the last 250 years of industrialization.

It has altered our lives more than any event or development in the past 12,000 years: in where we live, how we work, what we wear, what we eat, what we do for fun, how we are educated, how long we live and how many children we have.

It greatest failure is that it has not spread wealth evenly across the globe, and the consequences have often been unjust.

For example, to-day in developing countries, where 85% of people in the world live, 16,000 children die each day from hunger-related causes—that’s one child every five seconds.

It did provided the countries that first adopted it with the technological and economic advantages necessary to eventually rule most of the world. In short, the Industrial Revolution is the “game changer” of modern world history. More than anything else, it’s what makes the modern world, well, “modern.”

But how has it come about that 10% of the world’s wealthiest people controlled 85% of the world’s wealth? Mostly because they were born into wealth that was made during the Industrial revolution.

So what exactly is the Industrial Revolution?

An Industrial Revolution at its core occurs when a society shifts from using tools to make products to using new sources of energy, such as coal, to power machines in factories, oil, electricity. nuclear power.

It began at the end of the 18th century, but it has yet to end.

It has transformed into much more complex global phenomena recently. Multi-national corporations design, build, and assemble products using resources and labor from around the world.

Proponents of the benefits of industrialization point to amazing inventions, technological advances, and increased global wealth. Global GDP per capita—the most common measurement of national wealth—has increased 800% over the past 200 years.

I would say to them that it also developed into a global economic system that seems exploitative and unsustainable, fueling unbridled capitalism that has led to exploitation of the weakest and most vulnerable on a global scale.

Giving Birth to multinational corporations that owe their loyalty not to any nation but to the profit motive.

So what happens in a country when free-market capitalism has no constraints.

The record of the last five thousand years of history clearly suggests that every single preceding civilization has perished, no matter where or how long it has been able to flourish, as a result of its sustained assault on the environment, usually ending in soil loss, flooding, and starvation, and a successive distension of all social strata, usually ending in rebellion, warfare, and dissolution.

They all seem unable to appreciate scale or limits, and in their growth and turgidity were unable maintain balance within or without.

Our Industrial civilization is no different only in that it is now much larger and more powerful than any known before, by geometric differences in all dimensions, and its collapse will be far more extensive and thorough going, far more calamitous.

We are now in the technology age and you might say that The Industrial age is water under the bridge.

No matter how you look at it we are staring down the barrel of a gun with many different bullets. Climate change,  Killer virus, World conflicts due to unadulterated Greed/ Rampant Inequality, Technology deserts and disfunctional non resourced World Organisations.

While demand for depleting resources are skyrocketing ,water, clear air and energy. By any biological gauge we moving beyond sustainability.

So is it time to abandon the concept of sustainability? altogether, or can we find an accurate way to measure it.  If so, how can we achieve it? And if not, how can we best prepare for the coming ecological decline?

The most important resources that drive current industrialization are finite. If billions of people replicate the same level of consumption, they will hasten? ecological and economical disaster.

So who or what will keep us from creating pollution or exploiting weak, desperate countries?

Who will stop global resource depletion?

Is there any point to the Technology Revolution, other than brain work instead of muscle work, if history is only going to repeating itself.

Now you don’t have to be a raw prawn to know that most of our all-powerful politicians and world organisations live in what I call a reactivate state.

By the time they have called a conference and blabbered on for days it’s too late. Now many times have you witnessed the pathetic sight of the UN and its world Organisations pleading for funds, equipment. Just look at the current Ebola outbreak. Growing the economy at all costs and keeping Wall Street happy seems to be their solution to all or woes.

Here are a few things that could be done.

Restore meaning to sustainability as more than just a marketing tool.

Share knowledge, share capital, and investments around the world.

Remove the Veto in the United nations and give all nations an equal standing.

Remove Carbon Credits. Set trading admission penalties for pollution.

And Make Greed contribute by,

Place a world Aid Commission of 0.05% on all High Frequency Trading, on all Foreign Exchange Transactions over £20,000, and Foreign Wealth Funds Acquisitions. This would create a perpetual fund removing the need to beg for funds every time there is a disaster. The funds could replace the World bank, the IMF, Save the Children, fund Conservation, and make enormous inroads into Inequality the scourge of our Technology Age.

For me there has be a greater willingness by our politicians to question conventional measures of economic growth in favor of more sustainable models with a greater emphasis on well-being.

Before you bombard me with all the good things the have come out of the Industrial Revolution I refer you to the title of this post.

Yes we would not have the Internet, Landed on the moon, developed drugs, and invented this and that, but there is no point in relying on all the answers coming from Google than experiencing it in reality.

IF WE DON’T WANT THE LEGACY of the Industrial Revolution to be a divided world due to Inequality we must conquer Greed by harnessing it to contribute to all or there will be nothing left to be greedy about.

Go back

Your message has been sent

 

.

HERE IS ONE OF THE GREATEST QUESTIONS OF OUR TIME.

23 Saturday Aug 2014

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ Comments Off on HERE IS ONE OF THE GREATEST QUESTIONS OF OUR TIME.

Tags

, , , , , ,

 

Some time ago I posted:

Big Data is leading us to Cultural De-Acceleration.

We are becoming increasingly “digitized.”

When you ask somebody from the industry, “What is Big Data?” they will usually reply that this describes the challenge that companies that collect and analyse the high volumes of Internet data face. This “big data” technically refers to the specialized tools required to store and analyse.

However, this response says very little about the significance of today’s digital revolution.

When the Sloan Digital Sky Survey started in 2000, its telescope collected more data in its first week than has been amasses in the entire history of astronomy.

Wall-Mart in the USA handles more than 1 million customers transactions every hour, feeding its databases with 2.5 petabytes- the equivalent of 167 times the books in the America’s Library of Congress.

Facebook has over 40 million photos and God only knows what Google is up to.

The point is that the world now contains an unimaginably vast amount of digital information which is growing bigger and more rapidly.

In recent years Oracle, IBM, Microsoft, and there like have spent $15 billion buying up software companies specializing in data management and analytics.

Data has become the new raw material of big business.

The trail of clicks is valuable and can be sold and you would indeed be an idiot to think that it is having no effect on your life.

The way that information is managed touches all areas of life.

What is true now is that more of our lives and activities are being stored digitally.

Like any technology, knowledge can be used for social good or to make things worse for people. Digital monopolies will wield considerable power.

There is likely to be a power imbalance if this kind of new capability of “knowing” is not well-handled by society.

There is no reason to think that the changes we are witnessing today will be any less disruptive than the Industrial Revolution.

We’re going to end up reinventing what it means to have a human society.

Who you actually are is now determined by where you spend time and which things you buy.

Big data is increasingly about real behavior and by analyzing this sort of data, scientists can tell an enormous amount about you. They can tell whether you are the sort of person who will pay back loans. They can tell you if you’re likely to get diabetes.

I am not a Edward Snowden.

If we handled Big data correctly it will bring massive benefits to us all – to our cities, to our environment, to our health, to almost everything.

Yet we also need a system that is flexible and adaptable enough to allow for bright ideas and social, business, and research entrepreneurship to build a better future, i.e. without getting tangled up in unthinkingly risk-averse bureaucracy and red tape. Without the rich getting richer and the poor living in a desert of ignorance.

We want to ensure that there is a high trust system for data sharing, not one that mitigates many of the risks.

We need to think of solutions that are sound and strong, but not brittle.

What kinds of principles and solutions are they?

There are many problems to be resolved. 

Who owns, controls, or has decision rights about data? Is it the collector of the data? Certainly they may have a financial interest.

The person who the data is about?

They certainly have an interest.

In order to reap the benefits of the data revolution, it is clear that existing databases will be re-used and new databases will be created.

But then, who owns the resulting data? The re-user?

Will they be owned by the entity disclosing or collecting the data, or will they be open by default?

What about collective ownership of data, such as IWI data?

How are intellectual property rights arrived at from the data managed?

Who has decision rights over data? The collector? Provider (if different)? The person or entity that the data is about? If there is a data commons, who makes decisions.

Who is the data custodian and what are their obligations?

Who will look after the (newly created) databases?

For instance, who is responsible for the processing and storage of the data?

Where and how will data be stored, and for how long?

Who will provide safeguards for data quality and data accuracy?

Who is accountable when data gets stolen?

Who will have the authority to decide on those data access rights?

What happens to data if the custodian gets liquidated or sold off (to another
business overseas)?

Can the liquidator on-sell the data to pay off creditors?

How do we protect the digital rights?.

We are living in a pluralistic society with differences in cultural backgrounds and value perspectives,which are spread all over the world and exposed to different cultures. These cultural differences influence our privacy perceptions and the types of data we are willing to share.

How could we maintain our cultural diversity and be an inclusive society in which the digital rights of ever one are protected?

What will be the social contract for a data-driven future?

The value of data no longer resides solely in its primary purpose. Value also resides in the re-use of data.

What do you give consent to when we cannot even imagine what possible future value that data may have?

Most data re-uses haven’t been imagined when the data is first shared, which raises the question of how individuals can give informed consent to an unknown.

Do individuals need to opt-in to an open-ended, multi-purpose arrangement?
Or are there perhaps other possible arrangements for informed consent we might be able to create?

Do children have digital rights to consent before a certain age?

What about you, and your family’s, rights when you die? Do we need digital wills?

Do we need the ability as individuals to opt out in the digital age, similar to how we can decide to opt out of target marketing campaigns of telemarketers?

Do we have a right to revoke our consent with the use of our personal data? How could this be arranged?

Will the digital footprints and breadcrumbs you have left earlier in your digital life, such as the public posting of sensitive pictures, haunt you for the rest of your life or even beyond?

How do we ensure the best outcome in a global environment where digital data crosses borders?

The Internet has, with a few notable exceptions, no borders and the digital world is truly global.

There are major questions, even on a domestic scale about the provenance and ownership of data, but these are amplified when global sharing is considered.

There are times when governments do not want your consent.

This is obvious in cases like policing and protecting children from child abuse.

There is no need to protect the privacy of some individuals.

But there are more challenging cases.

What if we could use personal health data to do research, to save lives?

What about when governments and insurance companies want to use shared data to manage their own interests?

Perhaps there is a life-threatening medical condition that a small number of people have. We want to profile them and compare them to others without the condition. But nobody wanted to opt in to share their data, though the risk to their privacy is small.

When do your interests in privacy outweigh other people’s interests or the collective interest? To track pandemic outbreaks. Who would give emergency consent to open all personal data to help stop the spread of this deadly disease?

Big data is big business for the criminal fraternity too who are adapting well to our digital future. Identity theft is increasingly common.

Like most things in this world the management of Big Data it is beyond control.

Along with Science and technology Big Data is out running our Morality.

There are a host of challenges and tensions for any society that wants
to play in this space; the sorts of challenges that we need to consider when people come asking to have and link up your data.

Challenges to safety from theft, bullying, or persecution; challenges to your autonomy and choice; challenges to freedom from interference from well-meaning (or otherwise) businesses and governments.

What can we do about it?                   You tell Me.

 

SOVEREIGN WEALTH FUNDS -Not a matter of minor concern.

20 Wednesday Aug 2014

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ Comments Off on SOVEREIGN WEALTH FUNDS -Not a matter of minor concern.

Tags

, , ,

Its back to Sovereign Wealth Funds and what they have being up to recently.

Shining a light behind their closed doors isn’t easy. Seldom mentioned in any Political or economical discourse these Funds will be the Jihad of our times.

Although sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) have been around for decades, it was not until the subprime mortgage crisis of 2007 that they truly garnered recognition as major players in the investment market.

With vastly different political, economic, and investment philosophies States/Countries are starting using their populations’ collective wealth to do more than simply investing with hopes of compelling returns.

When they invest in the infrastructure or some other critical industry of another country, for example, people are left to wonder what the real motivation might be.

Guided by the interests of the state rather than those of international business community they are gobbling up what is left of the worlds assets/resources.

With a mind-boggling $6 trillion of assets, (Sovereign wealth funds–charged with preserving the accumulated fortunes of their home nations–are well known for their opaque, tightly guarded investment decisions) an amount on par with the collective economic output of Germany and the U.K. combined.

The 10 largest funds account for 80 percent of that wealth.

The value of global direct deals by sovereign-wealth funds hit $50.02 billion in the first half of 2014.

This was a 23.1% increase on comparable transactions in the first half of last year, and up from roughly $35 billion put to work in the first half of 2012.

The largest deal struck by a sovereign-wealth fund in the first half of 2014 was Singapore’s Temasek Holdings ‘ $5.7 billion purchase of a 25% stake in A.S. Watson Holdings, a health and beauty retailer.

The financial sector was the most attractive for sovereign-wealth funds. A total of $12.9 billion was put to work in direct deals in the sector.

The rise in direct deals by sovereign-wealth funds comes as large, sophisticated investors seek to bypass fees charged by fund managers.

In December, the former co-head of private equity at European firm Doughty Hanson joined the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board. In February, Pascal Heberling, a 12-year veteran of European private equity firm Cinven, joined the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority to find direct investment opportunities.

Russia, for example, where tensions with the U.S. and European Union have continued to escalate. Political instability, exactly what sovereign investors like and don’t like, is affording more and more investment opportunities.

These funds’ potential influence is unquestionable.

Though countries all over the globe have sovereign investment funds, East Asian and the Middle Eastern funds make up 72 percent of total sovereign assets under active management.

As of 2012, Norway’s fund owned more than $4 billion worth of stock each in Apple, HSBC, Nestle, Royal Dutch Shell. That same year, China Investment Corp., – the world’s fourth largest fund – bought a 10 percent stake in Heathrow Airport Holdings. The $773 billion Abu Dhabi Investment Fund (world rank: #2), invested $7.5 billion in Citigroup in 2007, which helped the bank to recover from mortgage losses. Temasek Holdings’ assets are worth the equivalent of 10 percent of the Singaporean economy and include majority stakes in both the national telecommunications provider and Singapore Airlines. The Qatari Investment Authority is reportedly considering using some of its $170 billion to build infrastructure in India. International reserves have grown 1,300 percent in non-Japan Asia since 2000 and by 900 percent in the Middle East and Africa.

For a majority of those countries surpluses are due to commodity exports, such as oil in the Gulf states or copper in Chile. In other countries, such as China, high domestic savings rates and low levels of consumption created the surplus.

On the other hand countries like the United States have accumulated large fiscal deficits.

Is there any particular type of investment that these funds favor?

It’s true that most countries’ funds focus on foreign investments, but an increasing number do deploy their wealth primarily at home.

Among the large funds, domestic deals are especially pronounced in three countries: the UAE, Singapore, and Malaysia, where they make up well over 50 percent of total investments. In each case, the host country has established an investment vehicle whose principal purpose is to effectively oversee the management of state assets, including privatization, and to invest in strategic sectors of the domestic economy.

Roughly 40 new sovereign wealth funds that have emerged since 2000, almost 80 percent in emerging-market countries.

A growing proportion of investments are likely to be in real estate, infrastructure and private equity.

They tend to operate like holding companies and have greater access to international capital than the state-owned companies would on their own.

Many Westerners worry that SWF investments would permit foreign executives to sit on corporate boards — and advance their state objectives that as government-operated investment funds.

Much remains to be understood about their processes and activities.

One famous example is Dubai Ports World, which in 2006 wanted to invest in ports in the United States. There was tremendous concern that they could use their investments to influence shipping routes. Dubai Ports World eventually sold the American assets it had acquired to AIG.

As to the question of how will the funds be used in the future?

They are increasingly being tapped to provide financing for domestic investments, including to help close infrastructure gaps.

A large influx of money can strain domestic resources and create opportunities for official corruption.

This opens up some potential opportunities but also a number of serious risks, including undermining hard-earned efforts to sustain macroeconomic stability and becoming a vehicle for politically driven “investments” that fail to add to national wealth.

However, the global payment imbalances that have been a driving force for sovereign wealth funds are decreasing. In China, for example, the government is encouraging a shift from an export-driven economy to a consumer-driven one, which would tend to drive down the balance-of-payments surplus. At the same time, fiscal and external deficits are declining in the U.S.

So sovereign wealth funds will continue to grow, but at a slower pace than we have seen in the past decade, however these funds will continue to grow, and so will their influence. Sovereign wealth funds are in a position to invest in large infrastructure projects that are in great demand and face sizable financing needs.

While their investment goals and strategies vary widely, countries will have to be careful to account for this increased investment within their own budgetary framework to counter these pressures. Keep in mind, too,  Many of these countries do have great need for more domestic infrastructure investment. But there are limitations, such as domestic absorptive constraints. And frankly, there are sometimes governance issues that could result in the misuse of vast resources.

However, many of these countries are still developing their intellectual and legal infrastructure. When a fund chooses an overseas private equity fund to invest with, for example, they’ll obviously look at performance and risk metrics, but they’ll also look at how willing that private equity fund is to transfer its knowledge.

Before it’s too late and we all end up Privatized these funds must be regulated so they cannot own more than 20% of any Investment.  

If not, in the not so distant future we will find that everything our Taxes have paid to provide will end up in the hands of Profiteers.

 

 

 

 

 

TO UNDERSTAND SOMETHING IS TO BE LIBERATED FROM IT.

16 Saturday Aug 2014

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ Comments Off on TO UNDERSTAND SOMETHING IS TO BE LIBERATED FROM IT.

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , ,

 

We have moved from basically a relative empty world to a relative world full of our stuff, full of man-made capital.

Our inability to grasp the new world is creating a vast vapidity and we are going to pay the price sooner than later.

With millions of people going to bed without food the age of decadence is coming to an end to be replaced hopefully by an age where money and wealth has to be shared.

The trickle down system does not work. Why! because by the time the money reaches the poor it is worth nothing.

Our so-called Capitalism of to-day that operates under a neoclassical school of economics rains supreme at the moment. Why! because it is backed by a legal system that legalizes it. However it will eventually fail because Greed is systemic within its core.

This is blatantly evident when we look at our Governments who are beholding onto corporate interests that will never serve the people. It is also evident went we look at our Banking systems, which create money from nothing and then lends it at interest. ( 97% of money is debt.) Debt is a form of slavery.

There can be also little argument that our Governments with the help of Milton Freeman, Ronald Regan, and hand bagging bashing Maggie Thatcher are now just clearing houses for the rich lobbyists that are concerns with the rich.

All three of them helped to created an Economic system that is based on what is not reality.

A dog eat dog society. Where Socially failure consumerism is now only to look good in other people eyes.

Where contrived wars on terror are promoting democracy at the point of a gun to be fought out in foreign countries and then presented to us by corporate owned media so that don’t have to experience the resulting destruction and death on our own door steps.

We have to change such veracious structure that has produced Institutions such as Goldman Sachs ( The biggest Bank robbers that pulled off the biggest hoist in the modern world: The big short with total impunity)

The more we grow the more poverty we create.

Our out dated competitive mentality will have devastating consequences.  We must move from globalization back to localization. It is our relations with other people is what make us really happy re humanism our lives. As Tyler Durden said ” The thinks that you own end up owing you.”

Making your own life does not work you must have attachment out side yourself.  

Internet enlightenment will play a big role in the future. The large cesspool of porn which debases us all on the internet will have to be removed. It is no wonder that Muslim fraternity consider the west full of unclean gentiles.

Passing the buck has to stop.

To improve things what we are being taught in university we will have to learn how to oppose in a constructive way, not on twitter or face book, or social media but by a collective world voice, that will have to be listen too.

Before the exhaustion of the world resources we would do well to return to Adam Smith economics to avoid morality socialism for the rich which is reflected by Scramble now the blood policy of Sovereign Wealth Funds.

The tax system is duking the world. We need a new form of capitalism where employer owned companies.

We must rise up and change the market.

What is created by human can be changed. Human beings go mad in crows and come to their senses as individuals.

Every drone kill produces five hundred so-called terrorists.

The monetary system to the world will have to be reformed.

Aid never goes to the people it goes to constructions companies and consultants on infrastructure, not the people.

So lets start by introducing a World Aid Commission of 0.05% on all Foreign Exchange Transactions ( Over $20,000) on all High frequency stock exchange transactions and on all Sovereign Wealth Funds Acquisitions. Such a Commission would produce a perpetual fund of trillions to redistribute wealth around the world where needed. ( See previous postings)

 

Go back

Your message has been sent

There are no military solutions to ‘environmental insecurity’.

07 Monday Jul 2014

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ Comments Off on There are no military solutions to ‘environmental insecurity’.

Tags

, , , , , , , , , ,

 

earth from space wallpaper hd 1024x576 Earth from space wallpaper hd

In the middle of the 20th century, we saw our planet from space for the first time.

From space, we see a small and fragile ball.

Over the course of this century, the relationship between the human world and the planet that sustains it has undergone a profound change.

The traditional forms of national sovereignty raise particular problems in managing the ‘global commons’ and their shared ecosystems – the oceans, outer space, and Antarctica. Many such changes are accompanied by life-threatening hazards.

Our Common Future, does not have to be a prediction of ever-increasing environmental decay, poverty, and hardship in an ever more polluted world among ever decreasing resources but the time has come to take the decisions needed to secure the resources to sustain this and coming generations.

 

This new reality, from which there is no escape, must be recognized – and managed.

There are more hungry people in the world than ever before, and their numbers are increasing. So are the numbers who cannot read or write, the numbers without safe water or safe and sound homes, and the numbers short of wood fuel with which to cook and warm themselves. It is impossible to separate economic development issues from environment issues; many forms of development erode the environmental resources upon which they must be based, and environmental degradation can undermine economic development.

Poverty is a major cause and effect of global environmental problems.

The gap between rich and poor nations is widening – not shrinking – and there is little prospect, given present trends and institutional arrangements, that this process will be reversed.

Humanity’s inability to fit its activities.

There is a growing scientific consensus that species are disappearing at rates never before witnessed on the planet, although there is also controversy over those rates and the risks they entail. Yet there is still time to halt this process

The changes in human attitudes that we call for depend on a vast campaign of education, debate, and public participation. A new international programme for cooperation among largely non-governmental organizations, scientific bodies, and industry groups should therefore be established for this purpose.

By the turn of the century, almost half of humanity will live in cities; the world of the 21st century will be a largely urban world. A safe and sustainable energy pathway is crucial to sustainable development; we have not yet found it

The world manufactures seven times more goods today than it did as recently as 1950. There is only one solution. CAP GREED AT SOURCE.( See previous blogs)

ON WE MARCH LEAVING FUTURE GENERATIONS THE PROBLEMS OF INEQUILITY

30 Monday Jun 2014

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ Comments Off on ON WE MARCH LEAVING FUTURE GENERATIONS THE PROBLEMS OF INEQUILITY

Tags

, , , , , , , ,

 

This is a vast subject on which millions of knowledgeable words have been written down the centuries with little or no effect.

I am sure you will agree however no matter who was writing it is the people who are in pursuit of social change, and constantly bring attention to issues of equal rights and privileges, are often the people who do not have them. The ones who suffer daily from different levels of multidimensional inequality are the ones that see it is impossible to be politically equal.

The source of present day conflicts. 

The majorities at the bottom of the apex, with very limited power, are unable to make choices that would bring them to their ends. 

It is easy for us to say what should be done, but few of us can carry out what needs to be done.

ALL THOSE WORDS AND VOILA! WHERE ARE WE TO DAY?

With a Capitalist market which is earthly constructed that can only dole out earthly rewards.

If we continue to have so many social and economic inequalities our standard of living seems to be declining because we aren’t economically equal.

Some say in order to remove inequalities we must increase the minimum wage to a living wage. This will indeed save the middle classes and in doing so could reduce the need for food banks, social welfare benefits, and the like. In my view it would be a mistake to focus on growth and let inequality take care of itself, not only because inequality may be ethically undesirable but also because the resulting growth may be low and unsustainable.

Equality will not stop inequality of opportunity, education, health nor will it take people out of poverty. It will only move the reasons for inequality to a higher plane.

The drive to higher and more sustainable growth does not in itself support efforts to the redistribute of wealth.

There is an argument that a re-distributive system will slow innovation on quality of life improvements. Further, re distributive policies rely on the wisdom of the ‘redistributor.’ Freedom to choose those resources has been moved to the bureaucrat and politician and will ultimately lead us down the path of financial protectionism.

Now you might not agreed with the content of the above Paragraph but it is already in progress with more and more countries turning to Sovereign Wealth Funds’ (SWF) to protects their futures.  ( See Previous blogs)

These Funds have no outside beneficiaries or liabilities (beyond the government or the citizenry in abstract) they invest their assets, either in the short or long-term, according to the interests and objectives of the sovereign sponsor.

More and more Governments around the world see SWFs as an insurance policy for a potential future problem.

Political equality the most value of democratic theory. The idea that all have the capacity to make political and moral decisions and that we are equally qualified to rule is a long way off, if ever has long gone out the window.

What are the chances now that we have the start of Climate change that we can act as one. Fat chance of that coming about as the Climate is a salable product- CO2 carbon credits ( not worth the paper they are written on)

There is much work to be done Globally in a tight time frame if we don’t want mass immigration.

Development is about people: either poor people have ways to become richer where they are now, or they can become rich by moving somewhere else.

Rest assured that with CLIMATE CHANGE THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT IS GOING TO HAPPEN.

With this in mind, it seems that most of these theories about re distribution of wealth come from fairly elite class perspectives and, in turn, tend to be more pessimistic about bringing change to the inequalities they are evaluating.

When in fact what will happen is that these SWFs will reach out to each other taking advantage of the forthcoming crisis forming partners or in “clubs.”capital.

These funds that Sovereignty Wealth Funds bring to the table are committed to improving their investment capabilities not reducing income inequality. They have taken advantage of the financial crisis by acquiring valuable human resources which has nothing to do with improving the quality of living for the masses.

If not Capped they will along with Climate Change they will rewrite the map of global.

There is only one solution. Make Greed Contribute. ( See previous Blogs)

 

 

WE LIVE IN A WORLD STILL FUMBLING IN DARKNESS

26 Thursday Jun 2014

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ Comments Off on WE LIVE IN A WORLD STILL FUMBLING IN DARKNESS

Tags

, , , , , , ,

 

Today “governments are everywhere embracing the free-market gospel, but should we leave the Capitalist free Market to handle Climate Change.

The answer is no.

History tells us so.  History Does Not Show that Business Forces Make Companies Efficient. Some claim free markets lead to greater prosperity than other economic policies.

I say that the selfish simply spend the extra money on themselves thereby setting an example for others that if you want a more affluent lifestyle you should be selfish. Left to regulate themselves in terms of climate change and the environment they are all ready turning both into products for Profit.

If we need pollution control, we don’t want it regulated by industrial companies.

We can choose to eat, drink and be merry today and die tomorrow; or we can choose to put limits on what we do today in order to live tomorrow. 

Consumer Choices Aren’t The Best Means For Citizens To Make Binding Group Decisions

There is more to life than merely increasing one’s money as fast as possible. A sense of security and dependability has some human value also.

Under American values any business with a conscience is at a disadvantage competing with companies without a conscience. These values are illustrated most dramatically by the wave of the future: telecommunications, the Internet, advanced computer technology, and the other wonders created by the exuberant American entrepreneurial spirit all unleashed by the market, by the huge transfer of public funds to private power, often under the traditional guise of “security.

We must put aside the intriguing contrast between doctrine and reality.

Meanwhile privatization proceeds apace elsewhere with Sovereign Wealth Funds taking control of the earth resources.

Control over food raises even more serious questions, in this case about survival.

Control over food supplies by foreign corporate giants is well under way, and with the agreement on telecommunications signed and delivered, financial services are next in line.

Just look at one important recent case, over considerable popular opposition the government of Brazil has decided to privatize the Vale Company, which controls vast uranium, iron, and other mineral resources and industrial and transport facilities, including sophisticated technology.

Also recently if you look a the Concentration of communications in any hands (particularly foreign hands) raises some rather serious questions about meaningful democracy.

Similar questions arise about concentration of finance, which undermines popular involvement in social and economic planning.

The free market gospel is preached (to the poor and defenseless) while protectionism through Sovereignty Wealth Funds is reaching unprecedented heights, and what are Administrations doing. Poured public funds into high-tech industry with unusual abandon.

Here we begin to reach the heart of the matter. Sovereign wealth funds activities must be caped if we want a free market and not Protectionism.

(See previous blogs)